


Third Eye

by Solovei, Yrindor



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Denial of Feelings, Empath Sugawara Koushi, Friends to Lovers, Haikyuu BigBang 2016, M/M, Minor Azumane Asahi/Nishinoya Yuu, Psychic Abilities, Slow Build, Sugawara Koushi-centric, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 17:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7901137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solovei/pseuds/Solovei, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yrindor/pseuds/Yrindor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For as long as he could remember, Suga could see things when he looked at other people—shadows over their hearts that represented the roadblocks to their happiness. He became known as a problem-solver, a skilled mediator, and the person to come to with any matter of problems. While he used this ability to help his teammates and friends, over the years his own feelings were pushed aside. </p><p>He could see Asahi's fear of rejection, Hinata's need to be challenged, and Noya's desire for a person to accept him for who he was. But there was one shadow that never revealed itself to him—that belonging to Sawamura Daichi.</p><p>During the Tokyo Training camp, he's confronted by Nekoma's captain, who wants to know what it is that Suga himself is yearning for. Their conversation leads to some uncomfortable truths, and he's forced to admit that he may have been source of Daichi's growing shadow this whole time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the song "Third Eye" by Florence + The Machine. Written for Haikyuu!! Big Bang 2016.
> 
> Thank you to [Airheart](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Airheart) for beta reading.

He had seen it for as long as he could remember. A dense shadow, morphing and flickering, over a person's heart. Not everyone had one, but most people did. Kids' shadows were barely visible, constantly shifting; the older a person was, he noticed, the more solid and dark their shadow. Each one _felt_ different, too. Some were shy and scared, others felt like they wanted only to burst free. Suga couldn't really explain it, how he could _feel_ them—it was the same as being able to feel the temperature in a room, or the charge in the air before a thunderstorm. Simply put, he knew they were there, but he could not say why.

Naturally, he assumed everyone could see the shadows, that that was just how the world was. 

"Mom, look! That man's shadow is really big!" He called out at the grocery store, tugging his mother's hand and pointing in the direction of a tired-looking person listlessly shifting their gaze between two kinds of soymilk. His mother, ever patient, sighed and stepped in front of him, lowering his hand and speaking softly.

"Koushi, what did I tell you? It's rude to point." 

"But mom—"

"Come on now, let's go. Leave the man alone, please."

Suga felt confused. He didn't understand. In school they had taught him that it was important to try and help your friends, to help other people, and wasn't that what he was doing? Was this something that wasn't polite to talk about? When he tried to tell the other kids, they mostly laughed. "Wow, Suga, did you see that on TV or something? That's not real, you know? My dad told me stuff on TV isn't real. " 

Eventually, he stopped saying anything at all. But the shadows did not go away, and he still felt like he had to do _something_. Had to help in some small way. It hurt him to see the people around him being so sad, a physical ache in his chest that grew stronger the larger the shadow. 

He tried to help however he could, and people did notice his efforts.

"That was very nice of you, Koushi-kun," his teacher said one day after he helped his classmate tie her shoes. "It's always good to help other people."

Suga couldn't help but smile when he felt the warm glow in his chest at her praise. He also felt better when he noticed how his classmate's shadow had faded back into the background. He'd learned that wasn't something to say out loud, but he felt it all the same. Helping other people was good everyone told him, and he had to agree; it made him feel better when he didn't see them with their shadows over their hearts, shadows that hinted to him of sadness and trouble they hadn't fixed themselves.

No matter where he was, the adults in his life always seemed to mention it every time he helped someone, and it wasn't long before he concluded it had to be a very important thing in life. After all, the more people mentioned things, the more they cared about them. There was even a chart in his classroom with all of their names on it, and his teacher would make marks next to their name every time she saw them doing something nice for someone else. Every week, Suga was near the top of the list, and at the end of every week, his teacher would read off the top few names and thank them for being so helpful. Some weeks, she even had a snack, or a sticker, or some other small gift for them.

By the end of elementary school, the chart had gone away, and teachers no longer called out kindness as much. Sometimes they would step in and scold the children they caught bullying others, but even then, they were more likely to leave the children to sort things out on their own.

But even though the constant praise and rewards that had marked his earlier years were gone, the behavior was ingrained in Suga by that point. He helped people because he didn't know what else to do, because he had been told time and time again that helping others made him a good person. He wanted to be a good person, so he kept doing the same things he had always done, even as his classmate's problems grew larger and more complicated to solve than a simple untied shoe.

His own life grew more complicated as well. The first day of middle school found him in a new town and a new school. His parents had gotten a divorce the previous year, and his mother had wanted to move them closer to her family. The affair had been difficult for him; he could see the shadows over his parents hearts growing darker and darker, but he didn't know how to help them. People were catching up with their elementary school classmates, exchanging news of the summer, and he sat on his own, pitifully looking around for a face to latch onto. It didn't help that everyone's shadows were all clamoring for his attention; it was a low sort of hum without an identifiable source, and he was noticing it more and more as he got older. 

Sometime after second period, a girl walked up to his desk.

"Hi. I'm Kasukabe Yukiko," she said, clasping her hands in front of her.

"S-Sugawara…" He managed to stammer out. "I'm new." Instantly, Suga found himself peering into her shadow for some shred of a conversation starter, anything to let him get on common ground with her.

"Yeah, I know. My friends and I were wondering if you wanted to join our club?"

"What kind of club?" He saw nothing; this was frustrating. There were too many other shadows in the room, and he could feel an ache building just behind his forehead.

"It's the botany club, actually. We take care of the school greenhouse." How was this girl already in a club on the first day of school, Suga wondered.

"Ah… um… I'll think about it!" He said, forcing a smile despite the continuing flickering in his peripheral vision. Yukiko smiled back.

"Good! Let me know~"

A week later, he saw Yukiko again by the shoe lockers, hanging back after classes. She looked defeated somehow, sitting there huddled in the corner. Suga took a breath and sat down next to her. He could see that she'd been crying. He felt her shadow easily—it was sharp, pointed, glass shards spread all around her.

"You know, Kasukabe-san, I think that guy was a jerk to say that to you," he said quietly.

She sniffled, turning her head to look at Suga. "But… I didn't tell anyone! How did you know about me and—"

He quickly held up his hands, "Oh no it's not… I didn't spy on you or anything, I just…" Here he paused, trying to figure out how to finish the sentence. Suga remembered well what happened when he was young and tried to tell people about this strange ability of his; he wasn't keen to repeat it. "I guess I just know how it feels." He said finally. The girl sniffled again, but he could see that she was trying to smile through her tears.

"Th-thanks, Sugawara-kun."

He smiled back.

It wasn't long until word got around that Sugawara Koushi was good at solving people's problems. How that happened remained a mystery to him, as he hadn't told anyone about his conversation by the lockers, and he didn't see why Yukiko would have either. Still, other people were a mystery to him despite his sometimes intimate knowledge of their problems, so he was left to deal with the consequences of his newfound fame. As the weeks turned into months, more and more people would approach him. At first only first-years like himself, but soon enough older students too, hesitantly standing at the door of his classroom until they could grab a student on his way to the bathroom and quietly ask him to fetch 'that kid that everyone's talking about.' 

Before long, it wasn't uncommon for him to spend the time before school helping a classmate through her breakup with her boyfriend, and lunch explaining to a math club member how he could talk to his parents about his desire to join one of the sports teams as well, and then the time after school with the various small things that came up within the volleyball club. Sometimes, he felt like he struggled to find any time for himself in amidst the deluge of requests on top of his own need to fix the darkest shadows, but he couldn't stop.

Initially, his classmates had exchanged pleasantries, or brought him a snack or some small gift—but eventually even that stopped. Unlike in elementary school, his classmates’ problems in middle school tended more towards crushes and breakups, and matters of the heart were always more fraught than others. No one had ever been too upset when he offered to help them find their lost notebook, or gave them a pencil to replace the one they broke, but when he confronted his classmates about crushes they didn't want to admit, or insecurities they were trying to hide, sometimes they would curse at him, and call him a nosy freak, even when they were the ones who had sought him out in the first place.

He didn't stop though, because he was supposed to help, and because their shadows hurt him. Putting up with their insults and their abuse was a small price to pay to make their shadows fade enough that he could focus on everything else. And every time he successfully solved another problem, he heard the voice of his kindergarten teacher telling him "thank you, Koushi. You're one of the kindest people I've ever met."

It wasn't until his second year of middle school that he met Daichi. He had gone to the park, like he did most days when he didn't have school and the weather was nice. He saw several of his classmates, like he usually did, and several kids he recognized as going to other schools nearby, but there was one boy he had never seen in the park before sitting by the slides.

He wasn't sure he would have noticed the boy as quickly as he did if it hadn't been for his shadow. It was much darker than Suga was used to, especially from kids their age. Over time, he had noticed that grown-ups tended to have darker shadows than kids, but this boy's was one of the darkest he had ever seen. It made his own heart ache just to see it, and to see the way the boy was sitting alone by the slide as if he had no one to keep him company.

"I don't think I've seen you here before," Suga said as he sat down next to the brown-haired boy. He thought he may have seen the boy in passing at school before, but he wasn't certain. It was hard to keep track of all of the students who weren't in his class sometimes.

"I wanted to go to the park," the boy said, "but I didn't want to go to the one I normally go to."

"Why not?"

"All of my friends are there. I don't want to see them today." His shadow grew darker as he spoke, and Suga decided it would be better if he didn't push the issue just then.

"I'm Sugawara Koushi," he said, "but usually everyone calls me Suga. Do you want to play with me?"

The boy looked up at him in surprise, as if he hadn't been expecting anyone to talk to him.

"Sawamura Daichi," he said softly, letting Suga take his hand and pull him up. "I don't really want to play with anyone today."

"That's okay. We can just sit on the swings if you want," Suga replied. "Do you like ice cream? There's an ice cream shop on the other side of the park, and sometimes my mom will give me money to get ice cream there in the summer."

Daichi smiled. "I like ice cream too," he said. "There's no ice cream place by the park I like, but I walk by one on my way back from school every day."

Suga smiled as Daichi slowly opened up to him. They sat on the swings for hours talking about their favorite foods, and video games, and other things they liked. Eventually, it was time for Daichi to go home, but he promised he'd come back the next day after school, and Suga was happy to see that his shadow had faded somewhat from when they had first started talking.

His shadow was a bit stronger when Suga found him by the swings again the following day, but not as strong as it had been at the beginning of the previous day. They spent the afternoon talking about their hobbies again until Suga had to leave to go home for dinner. They parted with a promise to bring their trading cards the next time so that they could compare and maybe trade.

It was several days before they met again, and when they did, Suga was surprised to see that Daichi's shadow had faded almost completely until it looked nearly the same as the shadows on most of his classmates. He held his tongue though and didn't say anything as they traded cards and played a couple of games together, and even though Daichi didn't seem to need help with his shadow anymore, they still planned to meet again on their next day off from school, this time at the park closest to Daichi's house.

It was the beginning of a tradition of meeting up on days off and after school whenever they could, and it lasted through the end of middle school. Suga was overjoyed when he found out that Daichi would be also be attending Karasuno the next fall; it was, he thought, the one good thing to have come out of middle school. Everyone's shadows had seemed to grow darker with each passing year, and his advice, even when solicited, had been met with more and more frustration. On the last day of middle school, he promised himself that he would try to avoid drawing attention to his ability.


	2. Chapter 2

When high school started, he stuck close to Daichi, but inevitably, the other first-years on the volleyball team did not fail to catch his attention. The girl introduced herself formally as Shimizu Kiyoko, bowed slightly, and said nothing further. Suga caught little glimpses of her shadow—he thought he saw a mirror—but it seemed unclear somehow. And the boy... He had stammered giving his introduction, and when Daichi tried to talk to him later, he could barely get two words out. Azumane Asahi... Suga could see his shadow very well, and it was almost too obvious. It was fear—fear of rejection, of being alone, of being left behind. Everything, he could tell, spun out of that. Rejection stemmed from failure, and failure was the result of constant worry. It was almost too easy. Suga couldn't tell if he was getting that good at figuring out the shadows, or if Azumane was just that simple. 

Despite the promise he had made to himself, he was already trying to figure out what he could do for that one. As much as he didn't want a repeat of middle school, seeing Azumane like this set something off inside him, a dull ache of recognition. 

Suga and Daichi spent their lunch breaks together as they had in middle school. It took them a couple of days to find a spot they liked, secluded but close to the gym so they could sneak in last-minute practices if they wanted to.

"What do you think of the coach, then?" Suga asked at lunch, biting off a piece of melon bread. Their conversations had consisted of nothing but volleyball and the team since practices had begun.

"Ukai? He's famous, and I can see why!" Daichi gestured with his juicebox.

"Well, sure… but all that running. I mean, I get the point, but maybe the old man is letting the power go to his head, you know?" Suga offered with a giggle.

He watched as Daichi's attention was stolen by something else. "Hey, isn't that Azumane-san?" Daichi asked.

Sure enough, it was him, wandering aimlessly around the school grounds, hands in his pockets. Suga had to cover his mouth to stop himself from giggling. "Oh man, he looks like a delinquent walking around like that…"

Daichi shot him a glare before standing up and calling out. "Azumane-san!! Over here!"

He saw the boy turn, looking around as if he wasn't sure if he was the one being addressed. Something in Suga's heart deflated, just a little. It had been just him and Daichi for three years, and sure sometimes Yui would be there too, but mostly it was just the two of them. They complemented each other so well that he really had no idea what would happen if they introduced a third element.

Still, he tried to put on a friendly face.

"H-hi guys… um…," Azumane stammered out, tucking a strand of brown hair behind his ear.

"Hey, why don't you come eat lunch with us? Teammates have to stick together, right?" Daichi said, patting the empty spot beside him.

"Ah… um… s-sure… Thank you."

He sat down awkwardly, tugging at the collar of his uniform. Suga and Daichi exchanged looks that said 'this was your idea' and 'what do we do now?'

"Uh, so… Azumane-san, do you like volleyball?"

"It's okay. I don't think I'm very well at it"

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry! I said that wrong didn't I? Let me try it again…" He took a breath, as if embarking on something that required great mental effort. " _I don't think I'm very good at volleyball_. There."

Now that Suga looked at him closer, there was something about his features that looked a bit foreign.  
It made sense now, the things he saw in Asahi's shadow—a vast empty space like deep gash in the earth, roaring sounds, large distances. His initial suspicion softened into something more akin to pity, but he didn't want to think of it like that. Suga wanted to think of it as compassion. He was different too, wasn't he? He himself wasn't like other people.

"I'm sorry, uh… my Japanese is usually pretty good, but when I get nervous, I forget things…" Asahi stammered.

"It's fine, really," Daichi reassured him, reaching over to pat the boy's shoulder. Suga smiled too.

"Don't worry, Azumane-san. I don't think anyone on the team cares where you're from, as long as you can do your best!" 

Suga was right. The Karasuno Volleyball Club accepted him heartily. Once he had gotten over his shyness, Azumane turned out to have a killer spike. Moreover, he blended seamlessly into their friendship to the extent that, by the end of their first year, they were nearly inseparable. Over the course of that year, he had grown past both of their heads, though he was still as shy and unassertive as ever.

Second year brought with it a new challenge: incoming first-years. Kiyoko had let him see the sign-up sheet before she had to submit it to their faculty advisor. It held a total of five names, and Suga spent part of his day trying to imagine a face behind every name. Of course they would each have their own shadows, their own problems, but he tried not to think about that. He had mostly kept his promise to himself during the previous year—as much as he saw Asahi's shadow, he did his best not to make any references to what he sensed in it. 

It was Daichi's that continued to worry him more, anyway. It was a nearly constant presence in his peripheral vision. Barring the unexplained blip the first few days they had met, it had grown progressively darker over the time they had known one another. Not only that, but sometimes it seemed almost as if Suga himself was the cause of its darkness. More than once he had entered a room Daichi was already in and noticed that Daichi's shadow seemed fainter than usual. But as soon as Daichi looked up and saw him, his shadow would darken back to its normal state.

Suga didn't dare ask about it though. Even if he could figure out how to frame the question to not reveal his power, Daichi had been his best friend for several years, and he didn't want to risk losing that. He put it all aside and focused instead on preparing for the possibility of new first-years joining the club.

Sure enough when he arrived for practice after the first day of class, the incoming team members were already there, cautiously talking to each other, comparing teachers and classes and positions. The shortest of the bunch, his hair spiked up wildly, jabbed a finger at his chest triumphantly.

"I got an award in middle school, you know. Best Libero."

"WHOA, for real? Is that why you came here?" A boy with a shaved head replied, no—yelled. Already Suga could tell this one would be trouble.

"Oh, nah. I liked the uniforms. Black gakuran is super classy, but also… _punk_. You know?" 

"Totally!" 

Despite himself, he quickly scanned the shadows of the new team members. Most of them didn't seem particularly interesting or difficult; he would get to them in due time. But one—the short one with all the pins stuck to his bag — his shadow was something else entirely. 

It was only noticeable in very rare moments, and sometimes Suga wondered if he was imagining it—a slight distance in Nishinoya's eyes, something forlorn. It would only show itself when the libero was alone, or thought he was alone. One minute he would be yelling with Tanaka, and the next— _this_ would come over him, but only for a second, like a picture inserted between the frames of a movie. Even on those occasions, Nishinoya's shadow was difficult to discern. It certainly wasn't as dark as others, but he wondered if perhaps it was being suppressed on purpose.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If the beginning of his second year had been marked by the shadows of the new first years, the beginning of his third year was marked by the shadow of his classmate. After their loss to Datekou, he could barely handle Asahi's shadow—it raged and howled even as the ace himself retreated further and further from the team. First he stopped eating lunch with them. Then he didn't come to practice. Then he quit the team entirely.

He could feel Asahi's shadow as it stalked through the school hallways, pacing, angry at itself and the world. "Give him time," Daichi said, "And Asahi will come back." But the weeks dragged on, and they were now in third year, and there was no sign of him. 

Finally, Suga had had enough. He rang Asahi's doorbell early one Sunday morning. "Ah, hello Mrs. Azumane," he said, all charm and smiles. "Is Asahi home?"

"Oh, yes of course. Go right up, he's in his room." 

He bowed, took off his shoes at the door, complimented Asahi's mother on her decor, and tried not to take the stairs two at a time. 

Suga knocked before opening the door. Asahi let out a tiny scream. 

"S-suga! Um, hi—S-sorry, I was just…" he stammered, trying to make himself presentable. 

"We need to talk. "

"Are you sure? I don't... um… I already told Daichi I'm..."

Suga ignored him and sat down in the desk chair, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Asahi, sit."

Asahi sat down awkwardly on his bed, still holding a pair of track pants in one hand and hairtie in the other."Right. Uh… What did you want to talk about?"

"You, actually."

"Oh, well… you know… same old, I guess." 

"Daichi said I should give you time to come around, but you know...I'm getting kind of tired of this." 

"I… I can't go back, you know that." 

"I know you, Asahi. I know you're afraid. You think that if you mess up, we won't like you anymore, right? That everyone will just stop liking you and you'll be left all alone. So it's easier to not even try. If you don't play, you can't lose. Right?"

Asahi didn't look at Suga. What was it with everyone avoiding his eyes lately? Suga wondered. He leaned forward and put his hand on Asahi's knee. "We won't leave you behind, I promise. Okay? I don't care if you lose every game from here on out; Daichi and I will always be there when you need us." 

"Well… you… you say that now, but… soon you'll both go to university somewhere. Everyone always leaves, Suga. My dad, my brothers… I've never _belonged_ anywhere, you know? I was so happy when I started playing with everyone on the team, because...for the first time, people didn't care where I came from." Here Asahi sniffled a little, still hiding his eyes. Suga could feel the prowling shadow settle slightly. 

"And I still don't care, Asahi. Come on. The team needs you. Daichi and I need you. " 

Asahi managed a weak smile, tucking a loose lock of hair behind his ear. "Ahh, I don't know, D-Daichi is probably really mad that I missed so much practice…" He didn't look convinced, but the shadow had all but returned to its former state, the one that Suga could handle.

Suga smiled back. "Mmm, well... he's got other things occupying him right now."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A couple of days later at practice, Suga looked idly over the gym as he caught his breath. Asahi and Nishinoya stood talking by the window, but that wasn't the most interesting part.

He finally saw it—Nishinoya's shadow.

"Interesting..." Suga muttered to himself, as he watched them.. 

"What's interesting?" Daichi's voice came from behind him.

"Oh, just... Thinking about the match, that's all." Suga grinned, patting his friend on the shoulder. "We have to think about our starting formation more, what with Hinata and Kageyama." 

In the following days, Suga had plenty of opportunity to test his hypothesis. Just as he expected, Nishinoya's shadow got stronger around Asahi, as if it was straining against whatever was holding it back, pushing on the bars of its container enough to warp them out of shape. At first he thought that perhaps the shadow simply reacted to others, but Suga, ever the scientist, had to rule out every possibility. 

Sure enough, interactions with Tanaka produced no such effect. This surprised him, but perhaps there was some other reason for this distinction? Laying in bed that night, he wondered what it meant. He hadn't really seen that before. Then again, his ability didn't come with an instruction manual; he'd had to figure it out as he went along. Over the years he had worked out some basic understanding of it, but he was still mostly flying blind.

He tried to think logically. Tanaka was, without a doubt, Nishinoya's best friend. They had been practically inseparable since they met. But Nishinoya's shadow didn't react to Tanaka at all. And Asahi... what was Asahi to him? He knew that Nishinoya often got frustrated with him, wanted to push him to be his best, but... was there more to it? After all, Nishinoya had refused to return to the team without him, and it took something immense to keep him away from volleyball. 

Suga chose his approach carefully. He knew how these things went; if he asked to speak to Nishinoya privately, he would only make him worry. He had to catch him on his own, when he wasn't expecting it. So he waited for the right moment. 

It was his turn to lock up the gym, so he told Daichi to go ahead and not wait up for him. By the time he finished, he could already hear the team's voices as they departed from the clubroom. 

Suddenly, Nishinoya's voice rose above them in a panicked scream.

"Noya? What's up, dude?" Tanaka asked.

"I forgot my bloody keys in my locker is what." Here he zipped up his jacket and ran back yelling, "Don't wait for me Ryuu, I'll catch up!"

This was his chance. Suga watched as the lights in the room flicked on, then made his way quietly up the stairs. 

The libero glanced up, rifling through the junk in his locker. "Ah, Suga-san! I just forgot my―"

"Keys, yes. I heard. I'll help you look."

For a few moments, they were both quiet. Suga took a deep breath—it was never easy to start these kinds of conversations. 

"Nishinoya, could I―?"

"Oh, did you find 'em? I'm really dead if I don't have them, my mom is away visiting my aunt so I'm―"

"Are you… okay?"

There it was—just for a second, that sadness. It was there, and then it wasn't, and then Nishinoya laughed.

"Yeah, I'm always great, Suga-san! What are you even talking about?"

It was time. He had to do this, it was now or never. "It must be tiring," Suga said, "being like that all the time. Wearing that mask." 

"Again, I dunno what you mean. I'm fine."

"That's the mask, though, isn't it? That's what you want people to see. You want them to think you're normal and okay and just, you know… Nishinoya. You want them to be distracted by the mask so they don't bother to look underneath and see the person you are." 

The clubroom was almost silent, and Suga thought for a brief, terrible moment, that maybe he had gotten it wrong for the first time in his life. That he had only made Nishinoya angry by suggesting that his personality was some kind of front. When the libero spoke, he almost didn't recognize his voice.

"It's… It's not like I do it on purpose," he muttered quietly. Those amber eyes looked back at him with something akin to suspicion, 

Suga kept talking, "You probably don't, no. I think, maybe… when you started doing it, it served a purpose… but having to rely on it more and more, you forgot that there was ever anything else. A time before the mask, so to speak. And I know you think you have to do this still, because this is the you we all know. The wild Nishinoya, the Guardian deity… you think, 'what would Ryuu say if he saw me as anything else?' But I know that someday you'll meet someone who will like what's under your mask too." 

Nishinoya looked back at him, unnerved, exhausted, but it was easy to tell that the gears were grinding in his head. 

Suga smiled his unknowable smile before standing up. "In fact, you may already know this person," he said before stepping out the door and making his way down the stairs. He barely made it five steps before the sound of running footsteps caught up with him.

"Wait, Suga-san! Who is it?" Nishinoya yelled, catching his breath. "I… what you said back there. Who were you talking about?" He said again, more quietly. 

Suga leaned over, put a hand on the libero's shoulder, and whispered a name into his ear.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Alright everyone, take five and then we'll do some blocking drills!" Coach Ukai's voice soared over the sound of their practice a couple of days later. Suga felt Ennoshita's quiet presence just behind him. "Suga-san, I was wondering… Do you have a copy of the schedule for the next practice match?" "Oh, uh… I think it was—" He paused, something catching the corner of his eye. Across the gym, Asahi was talking to Nishioya, their shadows muted, calm, like the surface of a lake. They never went away forever, of course, but even having those two quieted down made it much easier for Suga to be around the team as a whole.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few weeks later, he walked into the gym to the sounds of an argument. In fact, he heard them even before he stepped through the door. Hinata and Kageyama were at it again. By this point, the exact content of their disagreements had become so repetitive that he didn't bother to keep track. He sighed and changed his shoes, standing in the doorway to see if the two first-years would notice him.

They did not. 

"Come ON, Kageyama, just tell me WHY NOT!?" 

"Because it's a dumb idea, that's why." 

"But it's NOT! I saw them do it and it worked so why can't—-"

Maybe it was time to put a stop to all of this. He had been aware of Hinata's shadow since the first day, but he had hoped Hinata would sort it out himself. Suga cleared his throat, and instantly the pair took three steps away from each other. "Sugawara-san… Good afternoon!" Kageyama said curtly, bowing. 

"We weren't fighting!" Hinata said at the same time. 

"I can see that. Hinata, can I speak to you? Outside?"

The first year nodded warily. As they walked out of the gym, Suga could see Kageyama grumbling to himself as he angrily bounced a volleyball off of the floor. 

Outside, Hinata seemed to be in a similarly sour mood. He kicked at a pebble and watched as it bounced towards the parking lot. 

"Hinata… um. Shoyou, I know you and Kageyama have always had some problems…"

"It's not my fault! He's a big stubborn idiot!" 

Suga took a moment to think. "What… what do you actually want, Hinata?"

"To play volleyball!"

"Well, yes, but you didn't have to join a team to do that."

He wondered if there was still away he could get Hinata to try and figure this out himself, instead of spelling it out for him as he had done before. Middle school had taught him that telling people what they needed to hear didn't always end well, but if he tried to lead the conversation in such a way that they had the epiphany on their own, they were usually thankful. It was harder though, and a lot of the time he didn't have the energy for it. 

Hinata looked deep in thought, as if he were considering it for the first time. 

Suga sat down on the grass, just under the windows of the gym. Inside, he could hear the hollow thunk of falling balls as Kageyama continued to practice on his own. Hinata's shadow was pulling towards him—wings too weak for flight, a strong wind. 

"When you and Kageyama met, you were still in middle school, right?" Suga started. 

Hinata gave a quick nod. "Mm. It was my first actual match, and we got beat pretty badly. I actually, um...I ran after Kageyama and started crying, saying how I'll defeat him one day!" There was laughter in his voice, but it wasn't happy, just the nervous chuckle of someone looking back on the past with unkind eyes.

"That must have made quite an impression on him,"

"I guess so. "

"I think, maybe…" Suga paused, looking at Hinata again. "I think in some way, that's still how he sees you." 

"But I'm not that person anymore! I'm better! I train all the time!" Hinata protested.

Suga held up a hand. "I know. I know that. But first impressions can be very powerful. When I met Asahi-san, he could barely get two words out without turning red, and now he's our Ace. But part of me still wants to protect him, because of how he was back then."

"I guess… I guess that makes sense. But I didn't really think we'd end up on the same team and all." 

"I think you want Kageyama to push you. To get you past where you're willing to go on your own. You want him to be the wind under your wings." 

Hinata looked at Suga, mouth set. He didn't say anything for a long time, but Suga didn't need him to. He could feel the shadow morphing, fading into the background, lessening its hold on him. 

Finally, Hinata stood up, fists clenched. "Thank you, Sugawara-san. I think I know what I need to do now." He bowed quickly and went back into the gym, leaving Suga alone under the window. He let out a long, tired sigh, leaning back to look at the cloudy sky. If only all of them were that easy. He knew he wanted to help them all, _had_ to help them all before the end of the year, but there was so little time left, and there was still one shadow he hadn't managed to quell.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time the training camp rolled around a few months later, Suga felt far better about the state of the team. Asahi and Nishinoya had continued to develop as a pair, and Hinata and Kageyama had finally put the worst of their differences behind them to become a formidable team themselves. The only shadow that continued to loom large on the court was Daichi's, and Suga still had no how to go about fixing it. The shadow didn't seem to have much of an effect on Daichi's playing though, so he tried to consider it less critical than some of the others.

Walking into the gym the first day of the training camp was always jarring. Not only was there the sheer noise and chaos of that number of people echoing around the enclosed space, there were also the shadows. No matter where he looked, they were there, flickering and clamoring for his attention, all too new and unfamiliar for him to be able to tune them out.

In the middle of the chaos, a small pocket of quiet across the room drew his attention. He looked up and was not particularly surprised to see Kuroo and Kenma standing with the rest of the Nekoma team. As it had been every other time they had met, Kuroo's shadow was faint and remarkably defined. It was still decidedly present; Suga would have been worried if it wasn't, but it wasn't nearly so loud and obtrusive as some of the others. Like Bokuto's, for example, that could drift from nearly non-existent to large and all-consuming and back again in a matter of seconds.

There was no way for Suga to say so without revealing too much, but he always found Kuroo a comfortable presence. It was easy to talk to Kuroo without being distracted by his shadow, and that relative quiet was always a welcome relief during the stress of the training camps.

But if Kuroo was comforting, Kenma was the opposite. His shadow was quiet too, but unlike Kuroo's, it wasn't a reassuring sort of quiet. It always felt to Suga like he was looking at Kenma's shadow through a thick fog, like there was more there flickering just out of his sight. He was so used to being able to see people's shadows clearly—to use them when deciding what to say—that he always felt like he was missing something when he spoke to Kenma, and it made him uneasy.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he was unprepared for the whistle that marked the start of practice, and he jumped, making Nishinoya and Tanaka laugh. He smiled at them and pushed his thoughts aside to focus on the practice drills they had been set.

They began the day much the same way they began their practices at Karasuno, with the teams all working through a set of drills assigned by the coaches. It broke from that soon after though when the teams were all paired off against one another to work in a more competitive fashion.

He supposed he should have been grateful they weren't paired with Fukuroudani for the first round of practice. He still hadn't completely adjusted to the noise and chaos of the gym, and he wasn't sure he could have dealt with being in such close proximity to Bokuto's rapidly fluctuating feelings just yet, even with Akaashi there to help smooth out the worst of the peaks and valleys. But fate had apparently heard him thinking about Kuroo and Kenma, as Karasuno found itself paired with Nekoma for the remainder of the morning practice.

As a whole, Nekoma was probably one of his preferred teams to play against, at least when it came to not having too many shadows to distract him, but no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, he continued to be unnerved by the quiet, hidden shadow that was Kenma.

He never realized just how much he used his sense of other people's shadows to augment his own playing until he repeatedly found himself thinking he saw openings in Nekoma's defense, only to realize on second glance that he had missed Kenma yet again.

He was so focused on paying attention to the drills and his teammates that he didn't notice the way that Kuroo kept looking over at him.

After the morning practice ended, they had only a short break for lunch before they hurried back to the gym for an afternoon of practice games. Any thoughts Suga had had about certain members of the other teams were shoved aside as he tried to be the best setter he could be whenever he was swapped in for Kageyama.

He had largely forgotten that morning's practice when Kuroo tapped him on the shoulder as they were cleaning up for the afternoon. "Can I borrow you for a minute, Suga-san?" he asked.

"Are you sure you don't want Daichi?" he asked, confused. He couldn't imagine what Nekoma's captain would want with him.

"Nope, I'm looking for you, if you can spare a minute?"

Suga nodded and followed Kuroo to a relatively quiet corner of the gym.

He noticed Kuroo's shadow flickering uncharacteristically rapidly. It was still as small and tightly-controlled as usual, but the flicker was new, almost as if Kuroo were nervous about something.

"I've heard your teammates talking about you a lot this training camp," Kuroo said, and Suga wondered if that was supposed to be an explanation of sorts.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I heard Hinata talking to Kenma about how you helped him figure out how to work better with Kageyama, and Nishinoya won't stop talking about how he never would have had the courage to ask out Asahi if it hadn't been for something you said. It seems like you've helped all of your teammates work through their various problems over the course of the years."

Suga shrugged. "It's the job of the senpai to look out for the other members of the team. I may not be captain like Daichi is, but that doesn't mean I don't have a duty to the team as well."

"You seem to have a certain affinity for it though. I don't hear anyone else talking about their teammates in the same way."

"I guess....I guess I've always had something of a gift for it," Suga said.

"A gift, or a curse?" Kuroo said, so quiet Suga almost didn't hear. He was certain he _had_ misheard, but when he asked Kuroo to repeat himself, Kuroo shook his head and apologized for being distracted by his own thoughts for a moment.

"It's clear you know what your teammates want, but what about you?" Kuroo asked, his voice back to normal. "What do you want?"

"What?"

"What do you want? You spend so much time worrying about what other people want and helping them to realize it themselves, but what about you? You have your own wants and needs too. What are they?"

There was a long pause before Suga answered. "I don't know."

"Imagine yourself as a stranger. If you passed that person on the street, what would you say they wanted?" Kuroo asked.

"I'd say they wanted to help people. That it hurt them to see the shadows in other people's hearts, and that they wanted nothing more than to make it so that no one around them suffered anymore."

Silence followed Suga's words, and in it, he saw Kuroo's shadow flicker briefly into something darker and less-contained before it was quickly brought back under control. Suga had never seen a shadow as well-controlled as Kuroo's, but he didn't have too long to ponder what it could mean before Kuroo spoke.

"Sugawara," he said slowly, "as much as we want to help everyone, we can't save them all. There are too many people out there, and only one of you. You can spend your entire life trying to help them, but there will always be more."

"I have to," Suga replied, the words slipping out of his mouth in a knee-jerk reaction almost before he had consciously processed what Kuroo was saying.

"You can't," Kuroo repeated. "And if you keep trying, you're going to burn yourself out; you're already starting to do just that. Even if you haven't realized it yet, some of your teammates have, and they're worried for you.

"I don't think I have to spell out how that would end—you too burned out to keep trying to solve everyone else's problems for them, and the people you care most about worried sick about you."

Suga looked away. The situation Kuroo described made him feel sick. He wanted to rebut it, but deep down in some part of him he would rather not acknowledge, he knew that it was the truth.

"Why are you saying this?" he asked. "Why does it matter to you? Why do _I_ matter to you?"

"Because it's obvious to me just how much some of your teammates are worrying about you. And because I can see how much you're suffering right now, even if you can't see it yourself."

Suga froze, barely daring to breathe. It sounded almost like Kuroo knew his secret, but that wasn't possible. He hadn't told anyone since he was a young child. There was no way Kuroo could know. Unless…

He finally risked looking up, and he found Kuroo looking right back at him, waiting.

"You…" Suga whispered.

Kuroo nodded, "Or close enough."

Suga was speechless. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised, but it had never occurred to him that there could be other people out there with powers similar to his. When he had pointed out the shadows he saw as a child, no one had believed him, and he had assumed that he was the only one who could see them. But if Kuroo could see them too, then maybe there was someone else who would understand him.

"What do I do?" he finally asked softly. For as long as he remembered, his life had been defined by other people's shadows; he didn't know what else there was for him beyond that, but if Kuroo's own shadow was any indication, then maybe it didn't have to be that way.

"I'll ask you the same question I asked before. Think just about yourself for now. If there were no one else around, what would _you_ want for yourself?"

"I don't know," Suga said again, and he hated himself for it. He _didn't_ know. At some point, feeling the pain from so many shadows and being unable to share it with anyone had become too painful, and he had locked those feelings away. And once he had discovered it hurt less that way, that _not_ feeling was a wall he could hide behind to protect himself, it had been only a small step from there to hiding everything away until he felt nothing at all. Sometimes he wondered if his power didn't work on himself, or if there was just nothing there to see anymore.

Kuroo stepped closer and rested a hand on his shoulder. "I'll tell you the same thing I told Kenma years ago," he said, "your feelings are always there, even if you have to look for them. And sometimes, the ones that are the hardest to find are the ones that deserve the most attention."

It was a short instruction, but it hit Suga like a lead weight. It had been so long since he had looked for his own feelings that he didn't know what he would find when he did. He wasn't sure he _wanted_ to know.

"Thank you, Kuroo," he said, desperately wanting the conversation to be over. He could feel things beginning to crack inside him, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep his own facade in place with Kuroo looking at him so intently.

He wondered what his own shadow looked like to Kuroo, wondered if Kuroo could see everything threatening to break free. He had studied other people's shadows his entire life, but suddenly finding himself on the other end of the equation left him feeling exposed and vulnerable.

"Dinner's going to be starting soon. We should head back," Kuroo said, squeezing Suga's shoulder once before he let go, looking for all appearances as if he were ending a perfectly normal conversation.

"Go ahead, I'll be up in a minute," Suga said, wishing he felt half so composed as Kuroo appeared. He knew he needed a few minutes to himself before he could even think of facing the cafeteria and the rest of the players.

"See you in a few then. Grab me anytime if you want to talk though. I mean it."

Suga just nodded, not trusting his voice. He breathed a shaky sigh of relief as soon as Kuroo left. He was the only one left in the gym, but even then he felt too exposed. All it would take was one person walking back in looking for something they forgot or trying to sneak in a little extra practice, and they'd see him immediately. His eyes fell on the storage closet. It would be quiet, and dark, and relatively hidden should someone happen to wander into the gym.

His feet were moving almost before he gave it conscious thought, and it was with a certain relief that he closed the door most of the way behind him. He needed a minute. He needed to put back up the walls he had carefully constructed for years.

But Kuroo had told him not to. Kuroo told him to look behind those walls, to see what it was that he had locked away. Kuroo didn't know everything, but somehow he had understood enough, and he had given Suga his answer. Maybe he couldn't see anything inside himself currently, but it was all there somewhere. He just had to find it again.

He wasn't sure he wanted to go looking for it though. After all, that was why he had locked it all away in the first place. It had been too painful, and so he had built a wall around it and learned to ignore it. The wall had stood for years, but with just a few well-chosen words, Kuroo had managed to make the first cracks appear.

And one crack led to another led to another until the entire wall threatened to crumble around him. And as it did, he was forced to confront the truth that perhaps Kuroo had seen: all his life he had focused on helping others, but somewhere along the way, he had lost himself. Somewhere, locked far behind all of his walls, was the child he had been, still scared and waiting to escape.

He hadn't helped himself by locking that child away, he had just put off the inevitable, and now, in his final year of high school, everything he should have learned about himself over the past years was threatening to come crashing down at once, and he had no idea how to respond.

In short, he hadn't made things better. He had broken them, possibly damaged them beyond repair, and he had no idea how to even start trying to put them back together again.

It was just then that he heard the door to the gym slide open.

"Suga? Are you in here?" Daichi's voice rang out, and Suga shrank back against the carts of volleyballs. Out of everyone who could have walked in, Daichi was the last person he wanted to see just then. He hoped Daichi would give up and go look elsewhere, but he had no such luck.

"Suga?" Daichi asked hesitantly as he opened the door to the storage closet. Suga tried to make himself invisible, but it was no use. "Suga, what are you doing in here?" Daichi said, letting himself in and closing the door behind him.

"You should go have dinner," Suga said, fighting and failing to keep his voice steady.

"Nonsense," Daichi replied. "Kuroo said I might find you in here, but I'd like to know why."

"It's nothing," Suga said. It wasn't nothing, but he wasn't sure how he would even start to explain everything.

"It's not nothing," Daichi rebutted. "If it were nothing, you wouldn't be hiding in the storage closet while everyone else is at dinner. What did Kuroo say?"

"Nothing like what you're thinking. He...he just made me think about some things."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really—" Suga forced himself to stop as Kuroo's words came back to him. Did he actually want Daichi to leave? And if so, why? Before he could come up with his answer, Daichi asked, "Will you talk about it?"

"I'll try," he said hesitantly, having to force every word out of his mouth. "There...there's something I think I need to tell you first. It's something I probably should have told you a long time ago, but…"

"I'm listening, Suga. Whenever you're ready."

"I've always seen things...differently from most people. It's, ah, hard to describe, but it's...it's kind of like a shadow. It sits over everyone's hearts, and it...it doesn't say specifically, but it sort of...gives me a sense of their worries, or their sadness, or their fears?"

Silence met Suga's words, and he was convinced he had said the wrong thing, and he waited for Daichi to start laughing at him.

"You've always seen them?" Daichi asked, and Suga could only nod, his voice caught somewhere up in his throat.

"Since we met?" Daichi continued, and Suga nodded again.

"What did you think, the first time we met?" Daichi said quietly.

It was years ago now, but Suga still remembered the day clearly, or perhaps more accurately, he remembered Daichi clearly.

"I thought you looked sad," Suga admitted. "You had a shadow that was bigger than most of our classmates had, and it made me sad. It hurt to see a shadow like that, and I wanted to make it better. But then a few days later, it was mostly gone, and it seemed normal again, but you stayed anyway."

"I had a pet hamster for most of elementary school," Daichi said with a sad laugh. "He died the day we met. I knew some of the kids in my class would make fun of me if they knew how upset I was over an animal I had only had for a few years, so I didn't want to tell them. I didn't want to have to pretend to be happy like normal either though, so I went to the other park where I didn't think I'd see anyone I knew well."

"And then I came along," Suga said.

"And then you came along," Daichi agreed, "and I'm glad you did."

It was such a simple statement, but Suga immediately felt better for it. Daichi was glad to have met him.

The feeling was short-lived though as all of the memories of the past few years came forward, of all of the times Daichi's shadow had darkened the minute he had seen him.

"Daichi, I have to know," Suga asked, willing himself not to start crying just yet, "do I make you unhappy?"

If Daichi's quiet gasp was any indication, it wasn't the question he was expecting. "Of course not! What makes you think that?"

"It's just....well… I'm sorry, I don't know how to say this that doesn't sound like I'm prying, but...over the past few years, your shadow's been getting darker and darker. Except, it's not all the time. It's…," he had to take a minute before he could force the words out around the tears that were starting to fall in earnest. "It's only when I'm around. Whenever you see me, your shadow gets darker. It's...it's like _I'm_ making you unhappy," he sobbed. "And I don't know what I'm doing wrong."

"You have it backwards, Suga," Daichi said, pulling him close. "I care about you. I care about you, and I can see that you're stretching yourself too thin, and that's why I worry. If I had known it was hurting you…"

"It's not your fault, Daichi. I should have said something sooner."

"This falls on both of us, Suga," Daichi replied firmly. "I should have said something too when I started worrying you pushing yourself too far."

"I just wanted to make you happy," Suga said. "It's all I've ever wanted, to make it so that the people around me aren't suffering so much."

"Everyone has their ups and downs, Suga," Daichi said sadly. "It's a fact of life. You'll never be able to fix everything for everyone, and even if you could, sometimes there are things that people need to work through for themselves, and you would be doing them a disservice by fixing it."

"I don't know what to do without it," Suga said through his tears.

"Take care of yourself," Daichi replied, mirroring Kuroo's earlier words. "We're all worried about you. I want to see you smile again someday. You had such a carefree smile when we met, but I haven't seen you smile like that in years."

"I...I feel like I'm flying blind," Suga admitted. "I'm not sure I know how to do this."

"I can't fix this for you, but I'll be right here to help while you work it out. At least, I will be if you want me to be."

"I don't even know where to start."

"Start with something small. What's one little thing that makes you happy?"

Suga shook his head. It was all too overwhelming at the moment. He knew he was going to have to deal with it at some point, and sooner rather than later, but it was all still too new and too fresh.

"It doesn't have to be now," Daichi said, wiping away Suga's tears with the edge of his sleeve. "Here, if we head back now, we can still make it to dinner."

"I'm not hungry."

"You've been working hard today; you need to eat. Will you at least try? For me?"

There was a long pause before Suga finally agreed. "I'll try," he said. Then, more quietly, "Thank you."

"You took care of me before; now it's my turn to take care of you," Daichi said, pulling Suga into a quick hug before opening the door and letting them back out into the gym.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Several weeks later, Suga caught Daichi's attention after practice and pulled him into the storage closet.

"This feels remarkably familiar," Daichi commented as Suga closed the door most of the way behind them.

"I like to think these are somewhat better circumstances," Suga replied, remembering just how hopeless and overwhelmed he had felt when Daichi had walked in on him at the training camp.

"So what are the circumstances this time?"

"I've been thinking about what Kuroo said, and I think I've found my answer," Suga said.

"Your answer to what you want for yourself?"

Suga nodded. "It took me awhile to get there, but I think I made it in the end. I was trying to think of the things that make me happy, and I kept coming back to how much I worried when I thought you didn't like me. And then I thought about how much time we spent playing together back in middle school—I still have some of the cards you traded me by the way. But I'm getting off on a tangent now. What I wanted to say is that no matter how I look at it, you're the one person in my life who's always stuck around me.

"But I've realized recently that there's something more than just that there. It's hard to explain exactly, but it reminds me of the feeling I get from Asahi and Nishinoya sometimes."

He could tell the minute Daichi figured out where he was going when Daichi stiffened and seemed to stop breathing. He could only hope he'd read the situation correctly and Daichi's reaction was one of anticipation or disbelief, not one of abject horror.

"I was wondering," he said before he could change his mind and back out, "would you be interested in going out for coffee together sometime?"

Daichi laughed. "Are you asking me on a date, Suga?"

Suga nodded. "Only if you'd like to," he said. "If you're not interested, we can pretend this entire conversation never happened."

"Of course I'm interested, Suga," Daichi said almost immediately. "I've been interested in you in that way since somewhere around our first day of high school."

"Oh," Suga said breathlessly as he looked up at Daichi.

The kiss Daichi gave him then chased away any lingering doubts he may have had about his feelings not being returned.


End file.
